It seemed like THIS year, it might be fun to actually show what some of the characters from Japanese pop culture (movies, TV and toys! actually LOOK like! (esp. with Halloween just a few weeks away)

GEZORA the giant cuttlefish from Yog-the Monster from Space! Gezora stands 30 meters tall (98 feet) and apparently weighs 20,000 tons! Basically- a cuttlefish infected by extraterrestrial microbes! It kicks ASS! It first appeared in the 1970 classic "Space Amoeba" produced by Toho-the fine people who bring you the Godzilla movies!

Here's a neat slide show of various posters and screen shots from the movie...

from the people who broughtyou Godzilla! Gezora shows up at 0:50

THE CALAMARI WRESTLER!This movie came out in 2004. Its about uh...well, a wrestler who becomes a giant squid! One great part of this flick? In the end he goes toe to toe with ANOTHER giant invertebrate! (no spoilers though!)

Japanese Cephalopod TV Monsters!

There's a long history of super heroes on TV in Japan-you've probably heard of characters such as Ultraman or the Power Rangers but one of the more popular, but less well-known in the US (unless you live in Hawaii) are franchises such as Masked (or Kamen) Rider.

Almost all of these shows were serialized and went from week to week with a monster every episode.

What happens when you have to create a monster for your hero to fight every week?? You come up with a creative theme that's what! Here are just a few of the ones I'm fond of!

A neat monster whose particular distinction was that the ammonite (serving as the monster's head) was kicked OFF his body early in the episode, leaving the rest of him wandering around and chasing after it!

The disembodied ammonite, in the meantime befriended a small child and learned the meaning of kindness. I don't make this stuff up!

From Ultraman 80 the gigantic octopus monster DARRON! Ya' just gotta love how they work the tentacles over the legs in all of these costumes..

The big bad GATANAZOA from Ultraman Tiga! Kind of a hybrid between a crab and an ammonite..

There are undoubtedly more! And one of these days..maybe I'll follow up...

CEPHALOPOD TOYS!

What I love about the Japanese culture is just how serious they take their collectibles and toys. Great care is given to items in a way that is seen nowhere else in the world..

For example, here is an ammonite "candy toy"-an item that usually accompanies a piece of chocolate or some other item (kind of the way a baseball card used to accompany chewing gum).

There is a series of these items that one collects and people sometimes hundreds of dollars to chase down a complete set of these...(the other items are mostly dinosaurs and other giant marine reptiles)

This represents an actual species of coiled shell ammonite-but not sure off the top of my head, which one it is..

And where would we be without a transforming robot?? This one is a bit of cheat since I think this might be something easily available in the US.. But its from Beast Wars: Transformers-and is called "Neo Dead End"

It goes from this...

To this...

Its great to see how cephalopods- and not just living ones-but fossils have worked their way into international pop culture! (now let's just hope that people who see these things figure out what inspired them!)

So, today is National FOSSIL DAY! WOO!! and y'know, I figure WHAT do people WANT to see on National Fossil Day???

OBVIOUSLY the answer is PARASITES!! (and related stuff like commensals!) Everyone LOVES parasites! Especially echinoderm parasites! Its especially exotic when you can see them as fossils!

To be fair, some of the relationships below are probably better described as "commensal" which means that one derives gain from the host without the host losing resources..

What's often most exciting about these kinds of fossils is that we actually have DIRECT EVIDENCE of animal interaction! Which for the fossil record is often difficult.

We can see that fish had big bone-crushing teeth and we can even see broken snails nearby on a fossil deposit, but after 300 million years, you have to be careful about conclusions. This is often what makes good reliable evidence of paleoecology so valuable..

Here are 5 interesting cases of parasitism/associations/commensals on echinoderms from the fossil record! There are undoubtedly more...

1. Paleozoic Platyceratid Snails on Stalked Crinoids!This one is probably one of the best known among fossils. Basically there is one Paleozoic group of snails belonging to the family Platyceratidae. They often look like this:

Image by Ivanvlee8 on Flickr

Multiple genera have been observed in a specific position right on top of the calyx or "cup" in stalked crinoids.

Here's what the animal typically looks like to give you a general bearing.

What the snails seem most interested in is the anal cone found on the TOP of the cup (this is the area where the mouth is found and is surrounded by the feeding arms). They are often found clamped down over the anus.

Most interpretations suggest that platyceratid snails are COPROPHAGES. That is a special kind of feeding which specializes on consuming POOP!

There are literally dozens of papers on the paleoecology and biology of these animals..and so I will leave this interaction to be written up in a later blog... But platyceratids are found on MANY different crinoids AND other stalked echinoderms from the Paleozoic, such as blastoids (see this account by Tom Baumiller)!

and also in this specimen of the same species showing more of these discrete holes on the test...

These holes were compared against the kinds of holes made by modern day gastropods in the family Eulimidae which are often seen as parasites on starfish such as the blue Linckia laevigata shown here... (images by Sven DeVos on Flickr)

Snails like this basically pop their proboscis into the body wall and take advantage of the host as prey. Its thought that they occur on a relatively low number of the total population.

Neumann and Wisshak observe this on 19 different locations (and thus 19 individual parasitic forams) on the test of this fossil sea urchin! Note that the big curvy worm tube isn't part of the foram traces...

Here Wisshak and Neumann document borings in the sea urchin's skeleton via the work of an industrious polychaete worm-a polydorid! Such worms bore though hard substrates and are asociated with tunnels such as this:

Image by elegaer on Flickr

But how can you be SURE that these worms didn't just find the dead animal's skeleton and bore through that?? Why make the jump to "These holes were made in the animal when it was alive"???

This cartoon basically shows that following the worm's "boring" through the skeleton and the deformation of the skeleton by the worm..the surface spines and other structures- pedicellarie, etc. ALL REGREW over the area that had been "bored" through!!

This is one of those RARELY seen animals that I love sharing with people because they are SO strange.

First lesson: Ctenophores are a group similar in appearance to jellyfish. But in a separate phylum-The Ctenophora. Here's the Wikipedia for handy-dandy quick reference. They are identified by "ctene rows" that are what they use to propel themselves. Underlight these ctene rows shimmer giving them an iridescent appearance which looks like this:

But there's one subgrouping of comb jellies that, for some odd reason, have taken to living on the sea bottom-sometimes on other animals, such as sea stars but also on sea urchins and corals.

Its thought that these are commensal relationships. In other words, the ctenophores live at no apparent "cost" to the host. But relationships are poorly understood-so who knows?

At the very least having THAT many ctenophores crawling around on your surface might clog up your papulae for respiration and so forth.

The animals are those strange moving white blobs on the surface. The ones living on the sea stars are in the genus Coeloplana. I'm not sure if the ones further down that are not living on sea stars are the same genus.. but I'm guessing probably not.

Those threads? Are the feeding tentacles that you would normally see here in the "sea gooseberry" Pleurobrachia

But here is Some neat NEW Benthic Ctenophores on Echinaster callosus! Shot in Lembeh

here is the FIRST video of benthic ctenophores as shot by Blenny Watcher. Host is Echinaster luzonicus

Here are some from Bocas Del Toro, Panama without the sea star host. Shot by Rosana Rocha

Echinoderms are WEIRD animals. That's why I love them.Their evolution is replete with adaptations to survival that are kind of mind blowing but as with all insanely unusual things, the ideas can be a little unsettling and frankly... a little SPOOOOKKKYY................

1. They don't seem to know when to die...Most biologists have noticed that echinoderms don't quite die immediately when threatened with the kind of life-threatening injuries that many would consider life-threatening. Or else..its the WRONG part of the animal that seems to go on living... [Yes, some do regenerate (and that will be a subject for a future post!) but not all.] Some examples:The Story of StumpyHere is a true story (although I don't remember who told me this story originally)Years ago, following a lab accident or perhaps a crab run amok, the disk and 4 arms from a sand starfish (Luidia clathrata) was separated from the mid to end part of its 5th arm.

Contrary to popular myth, not all starfish can regrow a complete body from just the arm. This one certainly could not.This separated arm tip (which was named "Stumpy") was kept in the water table and continued to move around for weeks to months...(I honestly don't remember how long but it was a long time).Stumpy was even "fed" clams, which it apparently moved via tube feet to where it thought the mouth was. These clams would move up the tube foot groove and then just...fall out when it reached the disk location. No disk! (and thus no mouth)It was never clear to me if Stumpy just sort of died on its own or if it creeped everyone out so much that they eventually just preserved it in the lab somewhere.This isn't necessarily unusual "behavior." One can often observe the arm of a brittle star sometimes continue to move long after it is separated....Presumably a combination of the unusual radial nervous system and the separated body part's ability to sustain itself using sea water (and nutrients) were responsible for this tenacious behavior?But why believe an echinoderm zombie story when you can simply watch it... Here is a "Zombie" Sea Urchin..The animal is broken open with insides removed and yet....IT LIVESSea Urchin Zombie from Timothy Ewing on Vimeo.

And another...

But on the OTHER hand.....

2. Uh... Do Echinoderms ever die of natural causes??As a person who has worked in and out of museums and aquariums, one of the things you notice is how some species kept in captivity become bigger and bigger..Some species such as Pycnopodia helianthoides (from the North Pacific coast)

Photo by Allison Gong

And the enormous Pisaster brevispinus, approach three FEET in diameter (that's about a meter for those outside the US).

Photo by Mr. J. Volz

When kept in captivity sea stars have no predators, are fed every day, and generally don't undergo much, if any, kind of stressors. Its never been clear if any of them perish of "natural causes."Now, to be clear-they do die. Diseases, aquarium mishaps, introduced predators and so on.But under optimal conditions?? I have had people watching these cold water species live on for over 10 years (but I'll be honest I would need to verify) and more than once I've been asked "Do they EVER just die of natural causes??"And honestly, I don't know if they do. Some accounts from the 1960s reported that they became "reproductively senile" but this account was speculative.The idea of echinoderms as long-lived is not necessarily new.Here is a post I wrote back in 2009 about how ancient sea urchins can get.

So next time you go into say hello to a large sunflower star at your local aquarium-pay it some respect. It might be much older than you are...

3. Some of them GLOW in the Dark!There is a whole POST worth of stuff on bioluminesence in echinoderms! And at some point in the near future I will write up more about it..but for now accept that a LOT of echinoderms glow!

And here is a neat video that shows the bioluminescent granular covering off a deep-sea swimming sea cucumber..

4. They way some of them go after prey, If they were bigger, WE would be afraid of them!Most people seem to have a fairly benign impression of echinoderms. Harmless shapes that sit on the bottom of the sea floor that make up part of a dreamy seascape...

Here at the Echinoblog I've done everything I can to change this image!

Many starfish and brittle stars can capture MOVING prey and do so in a variety of surprising ways. Imagine ANY of these things as dog or even COW sized and humans would be more respectful of the humble echinoderm...

5. Dried Echinoderms are MUMMIES, NOT shellsThis is probably one of the more macabre things that I've made note of before. Undoubtedly we have all seen starfish decorations for the holidays and weddings??

A sad Pisaster ochraceus

sad Linckia laevigata

So, let's remember/invoke some basic biology about ALL echinoderms here. Remember that ALL echinoderms have skin covering OVER their endoskeleton.

When sea star (or ANY echinoderm) is prepared dried this way?

This isn't the same as some shell. There is/was skin on them. THESE ARE MUMMIES.

What you are doing above? Is like putting funny clothes on a skeleton or a mummy like this... (which I suppose is fine if you realize what you're doing..)

Bonjour to everyone! At the moment I am continuing my research in Paris at the Museum national d'Historie naturelle! Here are a bunch of my prior posts about studying at this incredible place!I'll be blogging more on this shortly but in the meantime, here are some neat close ups of various starfish species!

the sand star Astropecten aranaciacus(temperate Europe, Mediterranean) click here to see it!Note the star-shaped pillars are called paxillae. In theory they protect the papulae (aka the gills) from burial) mage by fabbricmare

Much of what I do is a mixture of new cutting edge research and very classical, old-fashioned stuff.

Essentially, there are massive collections of starfish (and other invertebrates) in the museum which are part of biodiversity surveys, expeditions, and exploration of various exotic locales throughout the world-Antarctica, Papua New Guinea, Madagascar to name a few...

I see a lot of this material as preserved material in buckets that look like this..

This material may look brown and unappealing, but it is a rich treasure trove of scientific data for the modern evolutionary biologist. Research endeavors from this kind of collection includes:

Describing New Taxa, including genera and species!

Extracting DNA and "barcoding" populations to study relationships across different areas (ie biogeography)

Extracting DNA and studying evolutionary relationships among different species

Discovering parasites in their hosts!

Studying the full sizes of a species to see how they change. (e.g., think of caterpillars to butterflies to realize how this is important)

Ecological Modelling

And there's probably no end to the number of potential projects. Mostly, I'm involved with the top two kinds of projects-but I've seen them all done.

Often times, my research trips (and those of other scientists to the museum) fuse the old and the new. And go something like this:

You find something new in the collections,

Sequence it for its DNA (or analyze its external appearance), discover it is close to an existing species...

Compare the specimen to a historical voucher (often called a type) to see if it conforms to the established definition. Is it a new species? A rarely seen species?

Publish!

There are any number of complications.. Types can be missing, analyses reveal unexpected results and of course new material is ALWAYS turning up in museums.. Sometimes new specimens can completely support a dubiously defined new species or instantly show how a recently described species is in fact just a variable individual of a known species..

Okay! But enough about work! Paris is a delightful city and I would be remiss if I did not share some of its charms..some not so subtle...For example, this ammonite is already pretty cool "as-is"

But then you realize WHERE it is..and it just has an awesome new twist!

Every good city has geology to be found in the unlikeliest of places... For example here is fossilifeous limestone used as floor stones on the Gare d'Lest train station..Can you see the cross-sections through various shells and other invertebrates?? Unseen by thousands of persons a day??

Tucked away in various parts of the city are weird little fun moments like this one... (near Les Halles)

And where would we be if we didn't show some French food porn! Y'know what's amazing about this? The "pink" donuts in the US have famously adopted the description "pink flavor"..But in Paris? not only can you get them warm-but they are RASBERRY. Tasty!

Sea Urchins (oursins!) or members of the Echinoidea are of course-the echinoderms that look like a big spiny ball (this includes sand dollars and sea biscuits!). Sea urchin specimens comprise an incredibly diverse (and important) collection in Paris with holdings from all over the world-especially from the tropical Indo and South Pacific! Undoubtedly many new species await description!

So for example here we have the very incredible looking Chondrocidaris gigantea

Others from the tropics are distinctive and RED but remain sadly, unidentified. Is this a new species awaiting discovery??

In addition to the above "regular" urchins, here are some cleaned tests (again-the skeleton of an urchin with all the spines removed) of some "irregular urchins" (distantly related to sand dollars).

A test of Schizaster edwardsi from the Atlantic...

I believe this one was called Breynia but not sure which species.

But why limit yourself to enjoying only the outside of these skeletons when you can go INSIDE?? No-not x-rays...but old-school careful dissection...

Judge, naturalist, geologist.Gustave Cotteau made ​​a career in the judiciary while devoting himself to paleontological studies. It was a judge in civil court Coulommiers civil court judge in Auxerre (1867), and retired in 1874.As a scientist, he devoted himself to the research and study of living and fossil echinoids, which he had a collection of over 500 species. With numerous articles in newsletters and journals of learned societies which he belongs, he continued the publication of the collection founded by Alcide d'Orbigny in 1840, Paleontology French. He was curator of the town of Auxerre.Secretary-General of the Institute of Provinces, responsible for publishing the reports of international conferences of Prehistoric Anthropology and Archaeology and the annual reports on the progress of geology and paleontology in France from 1858 to 1869...

Here's looking at you!Image by the always awesome Arthur Anker! (Straits of Johore Biodiversity Survey, Oct 2012)This week, owing to "crunch time" on my trip and being up to my arm pits in Antarctic starfish- you get a nice photo essay about sea spiders (btw-not arachnids) aka pycnogonids! Not echinoderms but arthropods! Mostly of these are pretty tiny, which is why most people never see them, but the details are everything! I was told once by one of my professors many years ago that you could go your whole life and never see one of these-wow! times have changed...

From the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (probably Anoplodactylus sp.) Image by Arthur Anker!

Some neat south African pcynogonids in the Florida Museum of Natural History collections Image by Arthur Anker!

Shown this one before (from St. Martin) -but its amazing so here it is again!

A neat one from Grand Cayman. Image by CourneyPlatt

This one identified as Nymphon breviostre but not sure where its from... Images by Alexander SemenovCarrying eggs..

This one identified as Nymphon grossipes feeding on bryozoa. Image by Alexander Semenov

Pink and Yellow! From Australia. Image by Indr

Pallenopsis macneilli from Port Phillip, Australia by Peter Fuller

Yikes. This one looks overrun by wee sea spiders! Images by Alexander Semenov

Here's one of the deep-sea taxa, possibly Colossendeis. They get to be over 7 inches across! This one looks big.. Image courtesy of SERPENT ProjectBut what do Sea Spiders (Pycnogonids) actually look like alive and moving? here's some HD macro video for ya!Sea Spiders from liquidguru on Vimeo.

And thanks to NEPTUNE Canada for reminding me about this neat video of a giant deep-sea sea-spider moving!

Just returned from Paris and am snowed under by jet lag and catchup, so here are some stunning images of various polychate worms! by my colleague Arthur Anker formerly at the Universidade Federal do Ceara, Labomar but now at the National University of Singapore.

Arthur's photography stuns me whenever I see it and if I can share it with the public than I do! Enjoy!

One of their objectives during this November dive was to look at the various animal biota in and around the ordnance (go here for a HUMMA Project update) such as these sea anemones living on a vertically oriented mine...

Probably one of the most abundant and interesting of the animals living in and around the ordnance were brisingid asteroids. So, there was an interest in finding out more about them.

Especially since they seemed to have large round "lesions" or swellings on the arms (note the large one on the upper center arm)..

Image courtesy of Chris Kelley, Hawaiian Undersea Research Labs

Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with brisingids from video and pictures taken at a distance. So many questions!

What species were these brisingids?

How many different kinds of brisingids were present?

What were the swellings? Why were there so many of them?

And so, collections were made by the Pisces V submersible's collector arm..

Being able to look over the specimens at long last gave us two valuable discoveries!

1. Possibly a new species?The brisingids we were studying belonged to a genus that had never been seen in Hawaii before! And a species that could not be reconciled with any of the known ones! Further work remains to be done-but it seems like there is good reason to believe at least some of the brisingids studied belong to an undiscovered species!

2. What were the swellings?An examination of the swellings revealed an even more interesting discovery!! They were parasitic barnacles!!There are some VERY unusual relatives of barnaclescalled Ascothoracidansthat can enter into the body cavity of sea stars (and other echinoderms), affix themselves to the internal body structures.

Some kinds of ascothoracidans have highly unusual relationships and can take over a host's reproductive system! (go here to see on case) It is unclear what the parasites in these brisingids do however.

The Time Lapse Project!

Brisingids were the subject of a neat project undertaken by 3 intrepid students from Honolulu's famous Iolani High School: Kyle, Erin and Logan (shown here with model of their study organism)

Their efforts were largely directed at some ecology and behavior of these starfish, about which VERY little is known. Often times, we can barely identify brisingids much less describe how they live in their natural habitat!

They participated and won awards at the 2012 International Science and Engineering Fair! Woo! Here was a pin of their crest!

One part of the student's work involved engineering and developing their very own time-lapse camera for use in observing brisingid sea stars!!

Here is a video from their early efforts in shallow water Extended to night time... And finally, here is the final product observing deep-sea brisingid starfish and some deep-sea sea anemones! Note how the brisingids move..

The full scientific impact and write up of all these discoveries is currently underway. But I find it a hearty endorsement of these kids' abilities that they were able to develop such a clever and useful device given their constraints! This was something they did in high school! I look forward to their efforts in college!

Its Christmas! I'm off to enjoy eggnog and awful movies but here's some bright colorful sea urchins for the holidays! Heterocentrotus from the Indo-Pacific (mostly Heterocentrotus mammilatus pics)My best to all of my readers and followers for the holiday season!

Image by "backofthenapkin"from Hawaii by weedmandanFrom Hawaiian Islands. Photographed by Dwayne Meadows, NOAA-NMFSOne from the Red Sea. Image by vanveeleenHere's another one from the Red Sea (maybe H. trigonarius?). Image by furstyferret81A nice one from Hawaii. Image by Alan CresslerOne from the Sinai peninsula. Image by bluepedafrom Hawaii. mage by mbasilefrom Hawaii by Arian durstA close up by Geoff SpibyAnother Hawaiian one by chinds_1133

As 2012 draws to a close here are Five (of course) cool and awesome things that the Echinoblog enjoyed this year! These are not in any particular order....

1. MENTORSHIP! This year I mentored 3 kids from Iolani high school in Honolulu, Hawaii who studied brisingids (deep- sea asteroids). Their research was entered into the International Science and Engineering Fair and they were rewarded for their efforts!

Here was their group pin..

A video that shows some of the neat biology (time lapse behavior) from their engineering feats!

2. THIRST DC. I gave a great and fun talk to a new social venue in Washington DC for the Smithsonian. Here's my brief outreach talk for the very gracious audience.

I also gave some Fun talks for volunteers at the NMNH, Invertebrate House for the National Zoo AND American University!

3. ANTARCTIC INVERTEBRATES Go here! I provide a list of neat Antarctic invertebrates for all to enjoy including everyone's favorite monstrous Antarctic scale worm Eulagisca gigantea!!I'm always happy when something I do takes off and gets widely circulated this one did so in a pretty big way..

Okay you invertebrate zoologists out there!! How many phyla can YOU recognize on the plate above??? By the end of this blog you WILL know! (and maybe, you will hate me for telling you)

Everyone seems to have a "Weirdest foods" list out there-but here at Echinoblog we offer you only the STRANGEST sampling of bizarre marine invertebrates cuisine! forget insects, snails or shrimp! Some of the edible (?) metazoans below are usually only noticed by marine biologists, zoologists and the well-studied biologist!What better application of knowing the strangest of marine invertebrate phyla can there be than to recognize it on your plate? Its scientific name disguised by colorful cultural argot or perhaps in a different language?

1. SEA SQUIRTS! (probably genus Pyura?). The Korean name for sea squirts as food is: meongge (although there are several more)Sea squirts are a kind of tunicate, which are in turn members of the phylum Chordata (the group humans and other vertebrates belong to) and when alive they look like this:

As it turns out, sea squirts are eaten all over the world, including Japan (called hoya and maboya) and Korea (meongge, and in a stew called agujim). They also eat sea squirts in France, Italy, Greece, and Chile .Images of sea squirts eaten in Korea. Image by scbrianchanA video showing preparation. Sea squirts are filter feeders and processing water through their body is a primary function. Thus, drainage seems to be an important feature...

when cooked and prepared it looks like thisor this.. Image by toughkidcstsometimes served with oysters... Image by Food Fetishist

One of the best studied examples is Urechis caupo, occurring on the North pacific coast -living in muddy burrows which serve as homes for many other commensals, including tiny shrimps and fishes.

But in Korea, a related species, Urechis unicintus is collected and eaten!

Apparently it is cut up into segments and served while twitching....

In other cuisines, it is cooked and stir fired..

the picture above? gaebul and mongae aka Echiuran and Sea squirt!!

and uh yeah, there's a belief that eating these imbues men with more virility. That seems unlikely....

3. INARTICULATE BRACHIOPOD (Lingula sp.)Brachiopods are one of the oldest animals observed in the geological record, going as far back as 500 million years. In some cases-they appear relatively unchanged appearing very much as they do as fossils.

and now we eat them.

This gives you an idea of what they look like alive..living in a muddy habitat Image by Changhua Coast Conservation Action.

There are two shells that fit over the animal on the top and bottom. Bivalves and other clams are fundamentally different in that their shells are oriented on the body left-right.

In one group, known as the "inarticulate" brachiopods, there is a big fleshy structure called the "peduncle" which emerges from the shell

Here is an image of brachiopods as sold in a food market in Makassar. Image by Arthur Anker.

Here is another from a Thai market. Image by Peter Roopnarine

In Malaysia this dish is called Probolinggo TEBALAN. The blog linked here suggests that Lingula tastes "sweet and spicy" whereas others I've seen suggest that it is served with a tasty curry.

Huh. Brachiopod curry. NOT something I was expecting to write today!

4. STALKED BARNACLES! Barnacles. Those well-known shelled crustaceans that live on docks and use their "legs" to filter feed out of the water like this:

These of course are what's known as "goose" or "goose-necked" barnacles because of the long, prominent stalk attached to the body sitting on top.

Yes. People eat them! I've seen them in Paris and Belgium.

In some places, barnacles are quite expensive...Imge by erikamussen

Other "unstalked" barnacles are also eaten!

In the Azores and Portugal, these are called cracas! Basically, these are boiled "acorn" barnacles. Image by Bellyglad.

5. SEA STARS! (family Asteriidae- species: Asterias amurensis)So, first let me distinguish between the "starfish for show" pictures that one sees around like this versus apparently real accounts of people who eat the gonads of starfish as seen in the video below.. Image by Robin G. Ewing.

Basket stars are a very unusual kind of brittle star (note that they are NOT proper starfish) which have long, branching arms which they extend into the water in order to feed. Basket stars occur in tropical and cold-water habitats andI have written about their feeding biology here.Tiny little hooks on the arms are used to capture food which eventually makes its way back to the mouth.

Here are some gorgeous Gorgonocephalus sp. (which occurs mainly in cold-water settings) images to kick off 2013!! Enjoy!Some gorgeous shots of G. arcticus from the White Sea by Alexander Semenov

G. eucnemis from echeng (the "rose star" is the solasterid sea star Crossaster papposus) in Alaska.

Gorgonocephalus from Norway, 928 meters! Arms are tucked away...Image by SERPENT Project!Several more on a ridge, using their arms to feed. Also Norway, 928 meters. Image by SERPENT Project.

More G. eucnemis from Alaska.. Images by jrixundewaterClose up of the arms..

An unusually pale, "bushy" individual from British Columbia. Image by Ed Bierman

Here's a really nice one of G. eucnemis. by "northwest diver"Gorgonocephalus fr. Newfoundland. Image by Derek Keats Newfoundland Image by Derek KeatsHmmm... y'know, it never occurred to me before but Gorgonocephalus DOES bear a striking resemblance to a certain CRYSTALLINE ENTITY from the 24th Century...

So, between travel, being sick, yesterday's massive Inauguration Day festivities and playing catchup, this week has been crazy!So here are some neat starfish time lapse videos to keep you informed and entertained!The awesome video of the tropical shallow-water "chocolate chip star" Protoreaster nodosus, foraging for organic particles and other food on the sea bottom.Stars of the Sea from Karin Brussaard on Vimeo.

The foraging behavior of the predatory Chilean/Patagonian cold/temperate water Cosmasterias lurida (Stichasteridae)

Second.Tube feet leave footprints such as this one which leave behind residue suggesting a glue or adhesive was at play..

In order to test whether suction played an active role in adhesion (in other words they attempted to DISPROVE the role of suction), the authors approached the problem with some very insightful observations/ experiments.

1. Observing the tube feet directly!

The physics of your basic suction cup model is pretty straightforward. The suction cup creates a large suction cavity between the attached foot and the substrate (i.e., the ground).

When you put a suction cup down, you press the top down and pull it up. This creates the suction cavity that attaches the suction cup to the ground..that's what you would expect.

Tube feet from Asterias (the starfish) and Paracentrotus (the urchin) were sampled immediately after it was clear they were attached, and photographed with a Scanning Electron Microscope. Histological (i.e. tissue) sections were also taken...

The top two pics (A+B) show an unattached tube foot.. But C through F? all show those attached to the bottom.

Figure 1 from Hennebert, Santos and Flammang, 2012

What they found? There was NO "suction cavity" between the tube foot edge and the substrate (i.e. the ground). The tube foot disc surface was actually flat and flush with the substrate surface. Thus, no physical evidence for suction could be observed.The authors indicate that suction may still play a secondary role, serving in conjunction with the adhesion/glue but for the most part it doesn't look like suction is a primary influence here.

2. Measuring the Attachment Strength of the tube feet

Next, Hennebert and her coauthors measured the attachment strength of the tube feet relative to different variables. These included

A. Measuring the strength or tenacity (in terms of Force or Tenacity) of sea urchins as they hung from a glass plate at different angles.They tested the adhesion of the tube feet on glass relative to detachment force (how hard they pulled) and pulling angle (the direction). That is they tried to pull it off and at different angles on a smooth glass surface.

fr. Fig. 3A in Hennebert et al. 2013

If this were truly suction then the tube feet would slide (i.e., no resistance) and the amount of suction would decrease. There was no (or at least no statistical) relationship between the detachment force and the pulling angle.

B. Measure strength and tenacity on a porous bottom

This one was more straightforward-if tube feet are anchored by suction, then an imperfect bottom (i.e. substrate) won't really work well as a good anchoring ground.

The authors used a sheet of plastic with holes present in the surface. They measured tube feet with a device that measure the force and tenacity and then recorded the footprints based on whether they completely, partially or did not cover the holes.

Prediction: If the tube feet use suction-the force measurements for strength and tenacity would be significantly affected. But if adhesion was at play, then the holes should make no difference.

Basically, this experiment mirrors the early observations of watching starfish or urchins moving around on a metal grate or mesh. How important can suction be if the animal can move on a non-porous surface?

No statistical differences were found between the different groups (i.e., the tube feet that walked over a complete, partial or covered hole).

CONCLUSION!And so, not only has prior work (see earlier blog post) shown the huge role of adhesion/glue in the way tube feet work but now, the original historical model..i.e., tube feet use suction has been pretty effectively undermined if not disproven outright!Its possible of course that there are further refinements to how all of this works in sea cucumbers and crinoids but starfish and sea urchins have always been the "model organism" for studying tube feet in echinoderms.

One of the oldest and most widely known perceptions about echinoderms? Not thecase.Evidence is slowly building up against it and an important lesson in science that even the most long-standing ideas can be overturned when you look at the facts with the right questions!

Brittle stars are everywhere. They are the most speciose of all the living echinoderms with over 2000 species (probably MUCH more than that!). At this moment in time, for studying brittle stars we live in a privileged time because we have several new workers who have taken to studying the various and weird lives of brittle stars! One distinctive feature of brittle stars that researchers that study morphology have always known about are the unusual jaws present on the mouth of brittle stars. These jaws vary between individual groups of brittle stars. Its one of the fundamental ways that brittle star taxonomists tell them apart.

These jaws are superficially similar to the ones we see in other animals in that some of them have "teeth" (called oral papillae) and other features which distinguish them.But other than their usefulness in telling them apart, what function do these "teeth" serve?

First off, Boos reviewed the feeding modes of two species with fairly distinct jaws and teeth.One of the studied organisms, Ophiothrix fragilis is covered with many needle-like and bristling spines...Images below by Hsacdirk

In life, they hold their arms up into the water and are almost always observed in this position in order to obtain food from water currents. Ophiothrix is a filter feeder. They gather up food on their arms, which is then moved to the mouth via tube feet.The other species studied was Ophiura albida which is more of a generalist. A sort of opportunistic feeder. Sometimes scavenging on dead animals but sometimes feeding on other smaller animals. Each species has a different life mode and presumably the morphology, i.e., the teeth of each species reflects how each individual species lives.

Image by Danielguip

A brittle star from a completely different group (ie. family) and with a very different set of choppers! Here is Boos' Figure 1 which shows the two "teeth" types side by side. Ophiothrix on the left vs. Ophiura on the right.

Figure 1 from Boos 2013

1. Predator? Or generalist? type jaw/teeth in Ophiura.Boos takes some pretty nice profile images (her Figure 2) of the papillae (=the "teeth") that allow her to infer some function.

top of pic is the oral surface, bottom is top or aboral. Fig. 2d-3

Boos argued that these teeth are in fact "predaceous (=predatory) dental equipment". Note how all of the "teeth" (=the papillae) were pointy. These, Boos argues, are used in gripping or spearing captured prey before ingestion.It doesn't take much to take this consideration seriously. Here is some classic video from Neptune Canada showing what looks like Ophiura sp. fighting it out with another individual over some food.

Other related members also have jaws/teeth that sort of look like this. Maybe more of these are more predatory than we thought?

2. Ophiothrix-Sharp teeth!

Ophiothrix (and related genera of brittle stars) occur widely in temperate AND especially in tropical waters. They can be quite striking and colorful..

Image by Arthur Anker

thanks to Wild Singapore!

Feeding in Ophiothrix is nicely shown in this video. Food caught on the spines, is moved by tube feet along the arm to the mouth, where the food ball, called a bolus is devoured.

Ophiothrix and indeed ALL members of the Ophiothricidae are well-known in the taxonomic literature for having these unusually striking types of teeth.

Here's a close up! Usually with a very comb-like appearance... MANY papillae (ie teeth) on each "jaw"

From imaging these teeth in profile, Boos notes that the "teeth" are arrowhead shaped and pretty sharp but also pretty wide.

Boos states that this combination of "sharp" and "wide" serves to cut up and crush the bolus of food as it enters the mouth. Boos argues that the teeth would also be effective for devouring diatoms and/or grabbing parts of or complete invertebrates in addition to big chunks of scavenged flesh.

And onwards? There are LOTS more brittle stars where that came from... As I had indicated earlier, the "jaws" and "teeth" have been used heavily to classify and identify brittle stars but none were really good at understanding function...

Boos's efforts are a start. Interpretation of these structures has been surprisingly unseen in the literature.

This for example, is an ophiacanthid from the Atlantic..

Has a jaw similar to that of Ophiothrix....kinda.

And this euryalid ophiuroid (aka a serpent star)

Further data from observations of actual feeding and perhaps even closer observations with x-rays and measurements of brittle star biophysics may give us more insight into how brittle stars feed!

and Hippasteria phrygiana which lives in the North Atlantic near the Arctic Ocean around the United Kingdom, Norway, off the coast of Massacusetts in North America etc.

Image by Vidar - Aqua-Photos.com

Often times, when you see two very similar looking species in far Northern parts, separated by the Arctic Ocean

You can test the relationships between these species using genetics to determine if they are closely related. Sometimes you can even determine if they are literally the SAME species perhaps separated by time and the history of the region. Ice bergs and glaciers perhaps??

As it turns out, we found something intriguing...The more we sampled these 2 species, the more we realized that scientists had assumed that Hippasteria was present from North Pacific to Arctic to North Atlantic.. it turns out no one had ever collected any from the Arctic!! (i.e., nothing in between!)And to add more to the mystery, there were taxonomic accounts which indicated that there were accounts of the Atlantic species, H. phrygiana in unusual places..namely.. New Zealand!! We looked at the distribution of this and related species..it turned out that H. phrygiana or species which closely resembled it were present all over the world! A two-year effort on the part of myself and Dave Foltz was launched! We managed to obtain samples of Hippasteria from all colleagues over the world! Our coverage spanned 3 oceans across 2 hemispheres!

the North Pacific-Aleutian Islands/Alaska

the South Pacific-Chile, Solomon Islands and New Zealand

the Kerguelen Islands in the South Indian Ocean (sub Antarctic),

the North Atlantic, the North Pacific-Aleutian Islands

We gratefully acknowledge all of the the co-authors and other scientists who helped us obtain the data we used in the paper!

What we found was pretty amazing. From all the populations around the world? There was ONE species.We extracted tissue and DNA from multiple populations and found that the genetic differences among the many populations found around the world were minute. SO minute that there was really no reason they should be regarded as separate species.. BUT there was structure. Different populations show SOME natural differences relative to other populations. The following two diagrams show what's called "haplotype networks" for the two genes that we studied. The size of the circle indicates the sample size, whereas the different colors shows the region and the lines show the connectivity between the regions sampled..

Fig. 2 Network for COI haplotypes

We sampled two genes but I've only shown one network so that you get the idea. Basically, there ARE population differences between the populations in the North vs. South Pacific vs. the ones in the North Atlantic.. One Species Around the World! You can think of this in the same way that human beings show differences (also called heterogeneity) between populations but are all basically considered the same species. In population genetics-its often the amount of difference between isolated populations that mounts up to indicating different species.

BUT this is still kind of unusual. One species that lives on the sea bottom?? From a group of animals not known to be quick travellers or even particularly well travelled? This species' spread is probably via the marine larvae which were carried via ocean currents...Widely distributed species often wreak havok with people who describe species (i.e. taxonomists). Do differences between populations mean many species? Or do they mean one species occurring widely? In this case-its ONE species. This also has a pretty huge impact on taxonomy. In the old days, many species were identified as new because they were found in new places, or far away from where prior species were known. A lot of the technology to test these relationships was not yet available...But now that we know, ALL those species names that fall within the range of our study will be suppressed (via international rules) by the oldest name-Hippasteria phrygiana. So, for example, the North Pacific Hippasteria spinosa (described in the 20th Century) will now be called H. phrygiana (described in the 19th Century) because they've been shown to effectively be the same.Another spin- HOW FAST did they Spread Out? and from where?

Further dynamics!

There was apparently NO gene flow across the Arctic and we couldn't find any records of this species currently present in the Arctic. So, in one sense they took the long way around....

Modelling studies of the genes showed that the three populations had been diverging with little or no connection (i.e. gene flow) for the past 50 to 75,000 years (roughly the late Pleistocene when).

That means that this species spread out over the world's oceans QUICKLY (not even a million years!) and not that long ago! That in itself is pretty surprising...

Could the distribution of these animals (originally spread via swimming marine larvae) be affected by glacial (i.e. ice) cover?

Although evidence was not concrete-it seems likely that Hippasteria spread out from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

This was not a case of spread from human transport. We know this because one of the genes we looked at had changed too much to have occurred in a human time frame.

So there you have it! A story about a species of starfish living in THREE Oceans! Evolved wide and Quickly! Not invasive and not an animal that floats around the world as an adult!